In one context, a building design, in the form of architectural drawings (preliminary drawings), is provided to an engineer or design professional who applies codes, standards and rules to prepare and adjust the building design as necessary to ensure regulatory compliance and to meet the client's individual requirements. During this process, the design professional generates sufficient detail for the production of detailed engineering drawings and specifications suitable for construction including, for example, the location and type of electrical services and heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC), all of which are subject to regulatory or higher design criteria. The detailed drawings are usually done by a team of skilled draftspersons, who may also be design professionals. These professionals also inject individuality and further detail into the final design.
An example of such a process is the generation of detailed mechanical and electrical drawings which include: specifications for supports, stud spacing and the position, number and capacity of electrical services, all of which are substantially compatible with a raw architectural preliminary layout specifying walls, doors, window layouts, and an elevation.
The drawing process, from architectural to detailed design drawings, is generally conducted along the following lines. Draftspersons start with a base plan, preferably extracted from an original raw architectural drawing. Alternatively, the draftsperson will draw the base plan from scratch. The designer, and more often a plurality of designers, reviews the specifications for the type of structure being designed. General specifications, including those required under the various codes for the jurisdiction, are gathered and applied including: providing a minimum wall insulation rating which sets minimum wall thickness, the form of electrical services which determines the size and locations of the motor control centers, and foundation backfill requirements including weeping tile and gravel filter requirements. The client's own specifications are consulted and applied for enhancing the design beyond those resulting from mere application of the general specifications. The application of the specifications is rendered into detailed design drawings.
Each preliminary and detailed drawing is comprised of vector elements typically created and placed using an input device, such as a digitizer manipulated by a draftsperson. For minimizing the labor involved in repetitively drawing consistent and known shapes, the elements themselves are usually provided as part of a predefined block or symbol or as a plug-in application provided with the CAD program. A draftsperson is still required to review the specification, choose the appropriate element and properly position the element in accordance with the known specifications and the individual professional's experience.
Further, individual clients or draftspersons are expected to distinguish a room from a corridor, and then define which of the various types of rooms receive which level of services (e.g. dedicated electrical outlets) and how the service will be supplied (e.g. through the floor or from the ceiling).
This known process, preliminary drawing through to detailed drawing, is laborious and inflexible. It is inevitable that there will be changes in the overall design which arise during the usually protracted duration between obtaining the preliminary drawings and final issuance of the detailed drawings. Further, the resulting level and quality of the details in the design is variable due to many levels of design input, from the design professional to the draftspersons. There is a need to repeatedly and dynamically revise each drawing, in a domino effect, for changes which arise in one or more related drawings.
About one half of the time expended, between obtaining the preliminary drawings and issuance of the detailed design drawings, is consumed in the detailed drafting portion. This creates two main disadvantages: a significant time delay, and a related increase in cost.
Further, while an architect, design professional or other client is constrained by many known and standardized codes, there are also instances where the known codes are inapplicable and personal judgment is applied or where the client's or design professional's personal standards exceed those of the codes. Each time the design process is commissioned, those personal and professional judgments or standards must be communicated to and be known by the draftsperson, generally through a working relationship developed over time, so that that appropriate standards and codes are utilized. Often the draftsperson simply adopts a number of personal and professional judgments or standards that are known, or which are assumed to be preferred by the design professional and those become the rules which are applied to the detailed design drawings.
Accordingly, there is identified a need for a system to aid the design professional, clients and client-engineers who wish to improve the detailed design process including to achieve the following: reduced turnaround, reduced costs, repeatedly and reliably applied personalized standards, and reduced overhead on the design professional where professional and standard codes are known and where individual professional standards can be learned and applied.